When you’ve got the kind of tonal presence that a band like Scythian does, all you need is a moderate groove like that of the song “Sail Away Johnny” to set forth an emotionality few of your closest rivals are going to be capable of competing with. A tempered attitude is key when making something like “The Bruce” or even its tracklist opposite in “Galway City” feel like authentic excerpts of a diary on Americana, and in Roots & Stones, we see how this exact attitude forms the basis for most every incredible moment Scythian muster. The year 2020 has been anything but easy on most of us, but here, this group shows us that staying focused on the discipline of a medium might be the best way to beat pandemic blues.
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The string-driven harmonies found in “Best Friend Song,” “The Fight,” “The Motherland,” “Virginia” and “Fire in My Heart” are some of the best Scythian has ever recorded, and as potent as these songs are, they don’t overshadow anything else on this LP at all. One of the best things Roots & Stones has going for it is the multidimensionality of its songwriting structure, which alludes to progressive themes but stays away from the overindulgences of concept composing without fail. This is a group putting even more thought into their music as they get deeper into their career, and if this were true of their contemporaries, I don’t know that this record would sound as unique and untouchable as it does this December.
All of the lyrics in this album have a rather personal feel to them and, for me, “Duffy’s Cut,” “Je Suis Coureur Des Bois”” and “Sweet Maryanne” are the crème de la crème. There’s nothing getting between these artists and the audience in the performance of these three songs, but rather an intimacy so strong and forceful that you have to turn off the stereo if you want to get away from it. Scythian don’t have anything holding back their ambitions here, and while I appreciated the material they were working with before this latest trip to the recording studio, I don’t know if any of it is able to touch on the same level of creativity that these sessions most certainly did.
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I didn’t know as much about Scythian before Roots & Stones as I do now, but with the weightiness of the content they produce on this album heavy on my mind, I don’t think they’re going to be falling off of my radar in the 2020s. There are a lot of bands trying to form a similarly hybrid sound that melds the best of Americana, international folk and pop/rock together, but as of this review I can’t say I’ve heard any groups that have had it as together as this one does. Roots & Stones is a fabulous way of getting to know who they are as a band and what their sound is all about, and I don’t think I’m going to be the only critic to say so.
Troy Johnston